Cristina Scabbia is one of two vocalists for Italian metal band Lacuna Coil, but you’d be forgiven for thinking she’s the band’s leader: The music press tends to concentrate on her at the expense of her less photogenic male bandmates. Fortunately, she says, “It’s a press problem, not a band problem. It’s a band. It’s not Cristina’s project, so we don’t care about that. If it can bring more attention to the band, it’s always good, you know?”
She’s a Beauty
Indeed, the relentless attention paid to Scabbia (the band headlined
the 2007 Hottest Chicks in Metal tour, for instance) has paid sizable
dividends for her bandmates. They’ve played numerous high-profile
package tours, from the second stage of 2004’s Ozzfest to the
Danzig-headlined Blackest of the Black in 2006 to the Australian leg of
Megadeth’s Gigantour in 2007. They’ve always stood out on those bills
— not just because of Scabbia, but because of how lightweight
their music sounds when compared with the other acts present.
This is a band that covered Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” on
2006’s Karmacode, after all, and the brand-new Lacuna Coil CD,
Shallow Life, is laced with synths and rhythms that are more
dance-floor-friendly than mosh-pit-inspiring. While there are grimy
guitar riffs on songs like “I Won’t Tell You” and “I Like It,” they’re
closer in spirit to Rob Zombie than Lamb of God. And even those
relatively heavy moments are balanced by the acoustic guitar strumming
and synth strings of “Wide Awake” — not to mention the title
track, a piano-and-drum-machine ballad.
None of this is new territory for Lacuna Coil, although Shallow
Life is definitely glossier and less heavy than 2002’s
Comalies, the album that first brought them to U.S. attention.
Part of this has to do with producer Don Gilmore, who has worked with
Avril Lavigne and Linkin Park. But it’s just a natural evolution,
according to Scabbia.
“In the beginning, we were kind of immature and naïve, in the
way that of course in the beginning of your career you always tend to
get inspiration from different bands, because you don’t really know
what you want to do with your music and how to do it,” she says about
the band’s earlier, gothier and more metallic music. “Now we’re having
a lot more fun, because we don’t care anymore. We’re ready to tell the
world, ‘This is our music, this is what we love to do. This is our
life.'”
At times, the singer doesn’t even seem all that attached to metal as
a genre.
“We picked up the gothic metal just because we were appreciating
other artists that were playing the same music, like Type O Negative
and Paradise Lost,” she says. “But then we had our own natural
evolution where the melody is present, because we think a good balance
is always important, to have a little bit of everything. Being heavy is
awesome for some reasons, but being melodic is awesome for others.”
Her vocals don’t have the powerful emotional impact of other female
metal singers like Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow; Scabbia seems to sing
from a distance, her vocals soaring above the music like a disco diva,
rather than burrowing through the mix to the forefront as is common in
rock. This distancing effect is only made more powerful when she duets
or sings harmonies with male vocalist Andrea Ferro.
The band spent a long time working on Shallow Life, and
according to Scabbia, it’s their strongest release to date, precisely
because they weren’t rushed the way they were on previous albums.
“We really took care of every single detail of guitar, bass and
drums,” she says, “and we worked a lot on the vocals, which is
something we never did before because of the lack of time. And the
songwriting is simpler, but heavier at the same time, because we’ve
been able to get rid of all the useless parts. I think this time we
wrote real songs, instead of putting together ideas and just recording
them. The lyrics are clearer; everything is there where it’s supposed
to be.”
Some of the songs represent musical departures for the band. Scabbia
points to “I Like It,” which she took a larger role than usual in
writing, as a track likely to challenge fans’ expectations of the band.
Others simply found the group testing its own abilities.
At first glance, it might seem like the Music as a Weapon tour
— headlined by Disturbed and also featuring Killswitch Engage and
Chimaira, not to mention second-stage acts like Suicide Silence and
Born of Osiris — is one more example of Lacuna Coil being the
glaring exception to an otherwise headbanging day. Scabbia claims the
group’s live show has more bite than the albums, though, and warns that
people shouldn’t let Lacuna Coil’s Euro-glamorous press photos fool
them about what to expect.
“People don’t expect us to be as heavy onstage as we are, ’cause
they probably think about us as a band that doesn’t really move onstage
or a mellow band,” she says. “Of course, our music is probably more
melodic and less heavy than other bands, but at the same time, we have
our own kind of energy that’s always made us feel comfortable with
every band we play with.”
And obviously all these metal warriors who keep inviting the group
out on the road must know something, right?
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2009.